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Computational Biology Application Suite for High Performance Computing 
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Installing  BioHPC

The Installation documentation is still in the draft stage. We are working on it and it should improve soon. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions and comments.

BioHPC installation consists of several parts: cluster nodes installation, web server installation, file server installation, optional elements (ftp, real-time scheduler). For a general overview of BioHPC architecture please refer to the BioHPC description pages.

In order to install BioHPC the following components are necessary:
  • MS Windows  computer cluster
    MS Windows Server 2003 with MS CCS or vsched is supported. Additional clusters may be linked via JSDL connection.
  • Web server
    Web server running IIS is required. It may be installed on cluster head node. The following additional components may be necessary
    • Microsoft Windows SDK
    • Microsoft .NET 3.0 Runtime
  • File server
    Network file system available on web server as well as on compute nodes is required. It should be available as H: drive, with BioHPC files placed in H:\CBSU. A special driver making H: drive available on compute nodes and web server is a part of the installation. File server does not need to be a separate machine, it may be installed on cluster head node.
  • SQL server
    Full version of MS SQL Server is not required, MS SQL Server Express Advanced (free) may be used instead. SQL server does not need to be a separate machine, it may be installed on web server.
  • Interface Domain User (IDU)
    BioHPC runs as a domain user, it is the only way it can submit jobs, access files and manage data. IDU must be created in the domain (suggested name is biohpc) with access rights allowing submitting jobs to clusters, accessing files on network drive and other (specified in installation instructions).
The following steps are pre-requisites, and are not discussed in detail, please refer to Microsoft CCS documentation for cluster installation details.
  • Decide the infrastructure: web server, network drive, ftp server, SQL server, interface domain user (IDU)
  • Install Windows Server 2003 64 bit on the head node
  • Set up Domain Controller or join existing one
  • Install MS CCS on the head node
  • Create image of a worker node, install worker nodes with CCS
Next steps are installing BioHPC on the nodes and setting up the server(s). You may also install optional services like real-time scheduler. Of course you need to download the distribution from our ftp server before proceeding further, and unpack i.
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